Saturday's Storyteller: "It wasn't as though she disliked thumbtacks."

by Belinda Roddie

It wasn't as though she disliked thumbtacks. It was just that whenever she used them - plain ones, colored ones, strangely floral-patterned ones that she could find in large craft stores - it reminded her of her fifth grade teacher, poking at her with a spare tack from the wall.

She hadn't been poked hard, and only once had the teacher drawn blood. That was when the principal was called in, and the teacher fired. Somehow, Donna always blamed herself for that happening. She seemed to remember the teacher as being a good one who made the class laugh and gave out candy right before they had to take arithmetic tests. The thumbtacks were just there as a disciplinary measure.

Now, as she prepared her classroom for the next gang of third graders who were ready to ignore times tables and bully each other over who could get the four square ball first, Donna found herself using thumbtacks more than ever. And somehow, as the thin metal slipped through the cardboard W in the word "Welcome," she was tempted to prick herself on the finger for being so naughty.

***

"Where were you yesterday?"

"I was sick. I sent in a request for a substitute."

"On the second day of school? Tell me that's not odd."

"It's a medical issue. I told you I'd be going in for regular appointments."

The principal, Susan Eisenberg, wrinkled her nose below her thick glasses. "You told me it was getting better."

"No. It's getting worse."

Donna fidgeted with a pushpin that she had found on the floor upon being sent to the office to speak with her superior. It was a shiny green pushpin. No thumbtack, but still disconcerting.

"You told me, last summer, that you'd either take the year off or promise a better presence record," said Susan, sighing. "What are the kids going to think when their very own teacher doesn't show up for half the year?"

"That I'm a flake."

"That you don't care about them," Susan corrected, then seemed to wish she could withdraw the comment. "Or that you're very, very ill, and they'll worry about you."

"Those seem like two very different reactions."

"New students. Older students. Can't always predict what they'll feel. Never trust that they'll be consistent." Susan exhaled and shook her head. "Go back to your class, Donna. And please, if it gets even worse, tell me in advance if you need it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Donna would never tell her the true reasons she had to miss work. It wasn't migraines. It wasn't cancer or anything medically severe. It was the anxiety attacks. And the crying spells. And the fact that she couldn't even leave her house sometimes because she'd spend hours locking and unlocking and re-locking her front door. She'd never tell.

But most of all, she refused to speak of the nervous breakdown she had endured upon being poked with a sewing needle, and suddenly she saw her fifth grade teacher's sneering face looming over her, his eyes as pointed and glistening as thumbtacks.

This week's prompt was provided by Adam Hobbs.